OSS 117: Lost in Rio

See it.  It is like the Austin Powers series but isn't.  It is more like James Bond meets Inspector Clouseau and together, the possess the social awareness of Napolean Dynamite.  Though done in 2009, the film goes way back to the late 50's style spy films with grainy film, decor, and all and it is well done.  The acting is awesome (campy), the cinematography and sound track are great, and the script nails it.  It has the PC subtlety of Airplane! (1980) and is just funny.

This by far one of the best films that I have seen in a long time.  It is just funny.

A World without Thieves

The acting, the cinematography, writing, and directing, aside from a few glitches, were good; however, the score was awful.  It bounced between what would be the backing track of the Chinese version of "Days of our Lives" to something you would hear during a fight scene between Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek.   It was so bad that not only was it noticeable, it detracted.

In short, an amazingly oblivious dude befriends/is befriended by two thieves (pick pockets, car thieves, etc) during a train ride to his home village which is far away.  With him is a good deal of money that he has made by restoring a monastery and which is he plans to use to start a life with his new wife who is back home.  The thieves are torn between wanting to EASILY rip him off or use him as the first paver in their road to salvation and forgiveness by protecting him from the other thieves they can see but oblivious dude can't.

True Legend

Ah my friends, I have been away for too long.  I strayed into the mainstream movies and drowned but have been returned to the shore of obscure films and this is one. 

The fight scenes were awesome and there were some strange characters to dig as well, but I can't go hog wild and recommend this.  Now, when I watch a film of this genre, I am in it for more than just the fight scenes and stuff.  That explains why the Bruce Lee "Dragon" series is not something I am all goo goo over.  Same goes for nudie movies...can't watch those because the one aspect they tout ain't enough to carry the bad acting, writing, directing, cinematography, and music.

This movie had good/great directing, writing, cinematography and music; however, it was just lacking something.  Perhaps the plot was just not too gripping.  If you dig fight stuff, this is pretty okay though!  Oh yeah, there is a loose historical dealio here on the Wushu style of fighting.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Bail on this.  The acting is so so, the directing is fine, the cinematography is okay, and the script is okay, but still bail and here (in a long winded statement) is why.  When I was in high school, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was the greatest thing.  We would go to midnight showings and do whatever we could to go see it over and over again, and if you didn't get it, well, you were just not hip or savvy enough to see its beauty.  I have wisened with age and here is the deal...that movie is crap.

"Wristcutters" falls into the same thing.  It takes sometthing bizarre and/or shocking and treats it in too cavalier/common a fashion for me.  In this movie, folks who commit suicide land in their own weird afterlife and how/when they committed suicide is revisited and treated as nothing really sad, shocking or whatever.  Instead, the suicides (and attempts) are treated by all with the same gravity as grabbing a coke from the refridgerator.

I saw this as an attempt by a new and inexperienced cast a crew trying to take a shortcut to notoriety by treating suicide in such a fashion. 

Riverworld

Eh.  This was crazy long (like 2 minutes shy of 3 hours) and had I known that and this was really a TV series crammed into one long continuous loop, I would not have watched it.  People are killed and then crawl out of a river where they run into the likes of Mark Twain, Pizzaro, etc.  Then you have members of "Blue Man Group" popping in and out to either advise or hinder progress.

There was nothing really great about the acting, the directing, the score, or the writing.  The cinematography was good as the lighting was fine and all of that, but there was nothing really awesome about the entire production.  You could tell that this was made for TV and that is where it should have stayed.

Made for Each Other

Oh God, so bad, so bad.  Please save yourself and don't watch this.  Just bad, save yourself.  Even with nothing in the house that I ordered from the lovely red envelope people, I could not bring myself to go past 14 minutes.

Move on.

Bitten

Bad.  Stay away.  I had such high hopes...not expectations for this.  Jason Mewes' character of Jay in "Clerks" (1994) was awesome, but like the rest of the "Clerks" cast, there has since been nothing worthwhile acting wise from any of them...this included. 

The previews looked good so I got it in hopes of someone from the "Clerks'" cast being able to obtain some form of acting redemption...didn't happen.  The only decent thing about this movie were the scenes in which (for no real reason other than to trying and save the movie) Erica Cox removes her shirt and bares her breasts.  Nice.  But, however nice those scenes were, they couldn't make up for the torture the bad script, acting, directing, score, and cinematography inflicted.

Bad movie, bad!!!